Masazumi Wakatabe

Masazumi Wakatabe is one of Japan’s most thoughtful and experienced voices on inflation, monetary policy and the political economy of crises.

Wakatabe served as Deputy Governor of the Bank of Japan from 2018 to 2023. His tenure spanned the final stretch of Japan’s ultra-loose monetary experiment, the shock of the Covid pandemic, and the return of inflation after decades of deflationary pressure. Sitting at the centre of decision-making as the world lurched from supply shocks to demand distortions, he developed a reputation as a clear-eyed reflationist. Supportive of accommodative policy, but deeply attentive to credibility, expectations and fiscal sustainability.

Now Dean of the Graduate School of Economics at Waseda University and a private-sector member of Japan’s Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy, Wakatabe continues to shape debate on how Japan and other advanced economies navigate inflation, debt, exchange rates and geopolitical disruption. He argues that central banks must anchor medium to long-term inflation expectations around credible targets, while resisting knee-jerk responses to supply-driven price spikes. His recent commentary on Japan’s inflation dynamics, from energy and food shocks to the surprisingly persistent effects of a rice shortage, reflects his trademark ability to connect macroeconomics with lived economic behaviour.

An authority on the history of economic thought and central banking, Masazumi Wakatabe has long studied how crises reshape policy frameworks. His award-winning books, including The Showa Depression, Economic Crises and Policy Responses, and Japan’s Great Stagnation and Abenomics, explore what governments and central banks do when orthodox models collide with political and social reality.

Today, as Japan faces rising bond yields, shifting BOJ policy, trade uncertainty, and the inflationary consequences of global fragmentation, Wakatabe brings valuable perspectives on where the real risks lie, and what policymakers should be watching next.